MAY03

1695 - Birth of Henri Pitot, French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the Pitot tube.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Pitot

1812 - Birth of William Samuel Henson , pre-Wright brothers aviation engineer and inventor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Samuel_Henson

1866 - Birth of Richard von Kehler, German Balloon pioneer.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Kehler

1891 - Birth of William Graham Westwood, South african WWI flying ace

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/safrica/westwood.php

1896 - Birth of Karl Allmenröder,German WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Allmenroder - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/allmenroder.php

1896 - Birth of Louis Marcel Germain 'Marcel' Doret, French Aerobatic, Record breaker and test pilot.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Doret

1896 - Birth of Richard Alexander "Alex" Hewat, American WWI flying ace.

http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/hewat.php

1899 - Birth of Gordon Frank Mason 'Mable' Apps, British WWI flying ace, who turned to Canada post war, joining the nascent Royal Canadian Air Force where He performed pioneering aerial photography survey work for the RCAF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Apps - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/apps.php

1918 - Death of Omer Paul Demeuldre, French WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his Spad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omer_Demeuldre - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/demeuldre.php

1918 - Death of Samuel Parry, Welsh WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident in a Bristol F.2b.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/wales/parry.php

1923 - The Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation is formed by Igor Sikorsky at a Long Island chicken farm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/May_in_aviation/May_3

1923 – U.S. Air Service Fokker T-2 pilots Lts. Oakley G. Kelly and John A. Macready complete the 1st non-stop flight across the United States in 26 hours, 50 minutes, 38.4 seconds from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Wickenburg, Arizona.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakley_G._Kelly

1924 - Birth of Robert Kenneth "Ken" Tyrrell, British WWII flying mechanic, Formula 2 racing driver and founder of the Tyrrell Formula One constructor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Tyrrell

1926 - Birth of Georgi Konstantinowitsch Mossolow, Soviet test Pilot.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Konstantinowitsch_Mossolow

1928 - USN LT’s Arthur Gavin and Zeus Soucek, takes off in a PN-12 seaplane for a world duration record for Class C seaplanes.

http://www.patriotspoint.org/news_events/naval-aviation-sets-seaplane-record-1928/

1933 - 1st flight of The experimental Hawker High Speed Fury, evolution of the British biplane fighter.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/hawker_fury.php

1937 - Death of Cosimo Rennella, Italian born Ecuadorian WWI flying ace, and pioneering aviator in south america Pre and post WWI war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosimo_Rennella - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/rennella.php

1940 - 1st flight of the Arsenal VG-39, French light fighter aircraft prototype developped from the VG-33.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=4587 - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG_33#Arsenal_VG_39

1943 - Death of Frank Maxwell Andrews , general officer in the US Army and one of the founding fathers of the USAF, in the crash of the B-24D-1-CO Liberator, 41-23728, of the 8th Air Force out of RAF Bovingdon, England, on Mt. Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes peninsula after an aborted attempt to land at the Royal Air Force station at Kaldadarnes, Iceland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Maxwell_Andrews

1943 - 1st flight of the Curtiss-Wright C-76 Caravan, American all-wood twin engined military transport aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright_C-76_Caravan

1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by Typhoons of the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_ship#Nazi_Germany

1948 - Death of Howard Clifton 'Tick' Lilly, American test pilot, killed on takeoff crash due to compressor disintegration in the crash of the 2nd prototype Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_D-558-1_Skystreak#Operational_history

1949 - 1st launch, of Viking 1.( Viking Rocket) It attained an altitude of 50 miles (80 km). The altitude was limited by a premature engine cut-off, eventually traced to steam leakage from the turbine casing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_(rocket)

1949 - Birth of Albert Sacco, Jr.,American chemical engineer who flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia on shuttle mission STS-73 in 1995.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Sacco

1950 - The 2nd prototype Blackburn B-54 Y.A.8. with a crew of three makes his 1st flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_B-54

1950 - HMS Ark Royal (R09) is Launched at Birkenhead. Audacious-class aircraft carrier, Royal navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier and world's 1st aircraft carrier to be commissioned with an angled flight deck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(R09)

1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States perform the 1st landing with a C-47 aircraft at the North Pole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_O._Fletcher - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_P._Benedict

1955 - The 1st pre-series Sud-Ouest SO 9050 Trident II was flown .

http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/so_trident2.php

1957 - 1st flight of the SNCASO SO-9050 'Trident' III, evolution of the mixed power French prototype interceptor aircraft.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9365

1957 - Death of John Jay Hopkins, founder and president of General Dynamics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay_Hopkins

1963 - 1st flight of the production form Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/piper_pa-30.php

1968 - Death of Bernard Artigau, French WWI flying ace, pioneering commercial pilot who also served in WWII

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Artigau - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/artigau.php

1968 - Braniff Flight 352 Lockheed Electra II, registration number N9707C crashed in Dawson, Texas, after it broke up in mid-air in a thunderstorm, killing all 85.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Flight_352

1976 - A Pan Am Boeing 747SP makes a record around-the-world flight, taking 1 day 22 hours. The flight left New York-JFK on May 1, and returned on May 3. The flight made only two stopovers during the journey, one in New Delhi and the other in Tokyo-Haneda, where a two-hour delay was made because of a strike among the airport workers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am#Record-setting_flights

1977 - 1st flight of the Bell XV-15,American tiltrotor VTOL aircraft, 2nd successful experimental tiltrotor aircraft and 1st to demonstrate the concept's high speed performance relative to conventional helicopters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_XV-15

1982 - A Gulfstream II from algerian government is shot down above the border between Iran and Turkey. Both Iran and Iraq rejected responsibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Seddik_Ben_Yahia

1983 - 1st CC 134 Challenger Jet was delivered to RCAF 412 Squadron.

http://canadianaviationhistory.pbworks.com/w/page/13801122/On-this-day-in-Canadian-Aviation-History-May

1985 - While descending to Lviv, Ukraine, Aeroflot Flight 8381 Tupolev Tu-134 collided with a Soviet Air Force Antonov An-26 which had just took off, in overcast weather, killing all 94 on both planes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_8381

1986 - 20 passengers die after an explosion caused by Tamil Tigers separatists aboard a Air Lanka Lockheed L-1011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Lanka_Flight_UL512

1991 - 1st flight of the Dassault Mirage F1-CT, ground attack version of the french Mirage F1C-200 air-superiority fighter and attack aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_F1#Mirage_F1CT

1998 - STS-90, Space Shuttle Columbia mission is back on earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-90

2002 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Jalandhar_India_MiG-21_crash

2005 - Airwork Flight 23 Fairchild SA227-AC Metro III, New Zealand Post cargo flight disintegrated due to Autopilot Overload.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwork_Flight_23

2006 - Armavia Flight 967, Aibus A320-211 crashed into the sea while attempting to conduct a go-around following its 1st approach to Sochi airport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armavia_Flight_967

2007 - Death of Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. , American test pilot, US Navy officer, and one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury. He is the only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo), fifth American and the ninth human to ride a rocket into space. He was the 1st person to go into space three times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Schirra

2009 - A Fuerzas Terrestres Venezuela Mil Mi-17 Hip helicopter crashes on a border patrol with Colombia with 18 fatalities including the Venezuelan General Domingo Faneite. The accident occurred near the town of El Alto de Rubio, in Táchira state, Venezuela.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1chira_helicopter_crash

2010 - Death of Günter F. Wendt,German-American engineer noted for his work in the U.S. manned spaceflight program. "There is no reason to say I am narrow-minded. Just do it my way and you will have no problem at all."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guenter_Wendt

2013 - Solar Impulse, Swiss long-range solar powered aircraft, takes off from Moffet Airfield, California for a flight across the US to New York City, via Phoenix (Arizona), Dallas (Texas), Saint Louis (Missouri) and Washington D.C.

http://www.solarimpulse.com/en/across-america/